Changes in Access 2010 (for IT pros)

Office 2010

Applies to: Office 2010

Topic Last Modified: 2012-04-05

IT Pros can learn about the new, changed, and deprecated features of Microsoft Access 2010 and how these changes can impact migration plans. If you are migrating from Microsoft Office Access 2003, we suggest that you review Changes in Access 2007 (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=164065) and Migration considerations for Access 2007 (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=164070).

This section highlights new features in Access 2010 that might be of more interest to IT administrators. You can find additional resources in the Access 2010 Resource Center on TechNet. (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=207810)

In Office Access 2007, there was limited support in sharing a database to the Web, where you could only publish your lists and move the database to document libraries. Now, in Access 2010, if you have access to Access Services in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, you can create a Web database by using Access 2010. Users can use your database in a Web browser window, but you must use Access 2010 to make design changes. Although some desktop database features do not translate to the Web, you can do many of the same things by using new features, such as calculated fields and data macros.

In Access 2010, you can export data to a .pdf file format (Portable Document Format) or an .xps file format (XML Paper Specification) to print, post, and distribute e-mail. In Office Access 2007 this capability was also available through a downloadable add-in. Beginning with Office Access 2007 SP2 and continued with Access 2010, this feature was built into the product so you do not need to install any additional software. Exporting a form, report, or datasheet to a .pdf file or an .xps file lets you capture information in an easy-to-distribute form that retains all the formatting characteristics, but does not require other users to install Access on their computers to print or review your output.

You can now connect to a Web service as an external data source. You will need a Web service definition file provided by the Web service administrator. After you install the definition file, you can link to Web service data as a linked table.

The Microsoft Office Backstage is part of the Microsoft Office Fluent user interface (UI) and a companion feature to the ribbon. The Backstage view, which can be accessed from the File tab, contains commands that you apply to an entire database, such as compact and repair, or open a new database. (The File tab replaces the Microsoft Office Button and File menu that were used in earlier releases of Microsoft Office.) Commands are arranged on tabs on the left side of the screen, and each tab contains a group of related commands or links. For example, if you click New, you see a set of buttons that let you create a new database from scratch, or you can select from a library of professionally designed database templates.

Access 2010 introduces features that are not supported in Office Access 2007. Although Office Access 2007 SP1 will not open databases that contain these features, Office Access 2007 SP2 offers limited viewing and designing capabilities.

Enhanced security features and strong integration with Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 help you more effectively manage data and allow you to make your information tracking applications more secure than before. By storing your tracking application data in lists on SharePoint Foundation 2010, you can audit revision history, recover deleted information, and set data access permissions.

Office Access 2007 introduced a new security model that is carried forward and improved in Access 2010. Unified trust decisions are integrated with the Microsoft Office Trust Center. Trusted locations make it easy to trust all databases in secure folders. You can load an Office Access 2007 application with code or macros that are disabled to provide a more secure, sandbox experience (that is, unsafe commands cannot be run). Trusted macros are run in Sandbox mode.

Access 2010 provides limited support in Access projects (.adp) for the following seven new data types introduced in Microsoft SQL Server 2008:

date

datetime2

datetimeoffset

time

geography

geometry

hierarchyID

The following three data types are unsupported when you use table or view design mode in Access 2010:

geography

geometry

hierarchyID

The alternative is to use SQL Server 2008 design tools for creating tables, views, stored procedures, and functions when you use any of these three data types. You can still use Access 2010 to design reports, forms, modules and macros that reference these data types.

The Microsoft Calendar control (mscal.ocx) is not available in Access 2010. Opening an application from an earlier version of Access where the control was used will generate an error message in Access 2010, and the control will not appear.

An alternative is to use the date picker control in Access 2010. For more information about the date picker, see Watch this: Make it easier to add a date (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=242468).

Another alternative is to use a third-party date picker control. For more information, see the following:

The Microsoft Replication Conflict Viewer is not available in Access 2010. To achieve the same functionality, you can use the ReplicationConflictFunction property in a database replica set so that you can create a custom procedure to resolve synchronization conflicts. For more information, see How to Use the ReplicationConflictFunction Property (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=165394).

The ability to export a report as a snapshot file is not available in Access 2010. Alternatives to the snapshot file format, in which file formats preserve the layout and formatting of the original report, are .pdf and .xps file formats.

Beginning with Office Access 2007, the ability to create, modify, or import data access pages was no longer supported. However, data access pages in an Office Access 2007 database would still function. By using Access 2010, you can open a database that includes data access pages. However, the data access pages will not function. When you attempt to open a data access page, you will receive an error message that states that Microsoft Office Access does not support this operation for Data Access Pages.

The IISAM (installable index sequential access method) for Lotus 1-2-3, Paradox, Jet2.x, and Red 2 is not available in Access 2010. If you need to link to, import from, or export to one of these IISAMs, you can use Office Access 2007 or earlier. When you attempt to create a link to, import from, or export to a Jet 2.x or Red 2 database, and when you select or paste a linked table to Lotus 1-2-3 or Paradox, you might receive one of the following error messages:

Could not find installable ISAM.

Microsoft Office Access does not support this operation for this IISAM type. To perform this operation, use Microsoft Office Access 2007 or earlier.

When you plan a migration to Access 2010, review what is new, changed, and removed for Access 2010. Because Access 2010 has many similarities with Office Access 2007, such as the same native file format, you can also review and use the existing migration documentation for Office Access 2007 when you migrate to Access 2010.

In Office 2010, Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) 6.0 was updated to VBA 7.0. VBA 7.0 settings were reset to their defaults after migration instead of automatically repopulating. This occurred because the registry settings for VBA are in a different hive in Office 2010, as shown in the following table.

Version

Registry subkey

Office 2000 through Office 2007

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VBA\6.0\Common

Office 2010

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VBA\7.0\Common

To correct this problem, copy the VBA 6.0 registry keys from the 6.0 hive to the 7.0 hive.